Verb-Noun

Karthi Subbaraman -

Design is a verb and a noun. The verb side of design is used to craft the noun side of design and the noun side of design triggers the verb side. It is a beautiful play between the two sides. There is no other discipline (in my limited knowledge) has this oozing beauty.

Starting from designing products to designing life, this interplay is essential. As a general designer (like a general physician 🙈) I use the same design process to solve all the wicked and non-wicked problems out there. The process is structured and the outcome is mind-blowing. The beauty is it can applied from any where, any time.

This year, I decided to share my design process for designing a slice of life aka new year to our community (guild.xperian.org) as a step by step course.

Super pleased with the outcome given the constraints of time.

A few personal learnings by building an impulsive course (Designing 2021) for a set of audience you care about:

  1. Just do it. Don't overthink it. The more I planned, the more I was stuck. Start speaking to the webcam as if people are in front of you live and it flows (it did for me).
  2. Edit the videos instantly. You will remember what to cut and what to keep right then and there. It was hard to edit later as i forgot what needs to be kept vs what needs to be removed. Batch processing didn't work in such impulsive and impromptu building. One video after another worked wonders.
  3. Focus on big rocks first. The gravel and the sand can come later. The big chunks will show the way for the small chunks to come in. Trust in your ability to connect the dots later.
  4. Every person's creative workflow is different. Mine was video first. Following the voice, writing (verbal) and sketching (visual) got easier. Find yours and stick to it. Believe in your authentic self. It knows more than what I imagined.
  5. Publish now. Go for version 2.0 post publishing version 1.0. Don't keep the versions in your computer. It rusts.
  6. People are more forgiving than you think. They look for that authentic voice. They care less about aesthetics and small mistakes here and there. Contrary to popular beliefs people are nice and warm when you are authentic and genuine.